| The Other Chronicles of Egypt |
| Being the fragmentary report of the tail end of a very old Regent game as the Egyptians, heavily modded. After serious wars and a long uphill struggle against the Persians throughout the Ancient and Middle Ages, Egypt has emerged triumphant and is beginning to work towards world dominance. |
| The Battle of Hamadan |
| The Situation: 1896 AD. Egypt is the number three nation
in the world scorewise, but under the leadership of Hapshetsut the
Immortal has gained technological supremacy. The Ever Victorious
Armies, who conquered the mighty Persians of Xerxes 300 years ago, are a
mid-sized but highly advanced fighting force. Earlier in the 1890s, Hammurabi of Babylon, the fifth-largest power in the world, grew jealous of Hapshetsut's supremacy and demanded spices from the Egyptians. It never having been Egyptian custom to yield to bullies, Hapshetsut refused, and Hammurabi declared war. Hapshetsut, not overly concerned, continued upgrading the Egyptian navy to modern destroyers while minorly fortifying the oil colony at Ptenetou, far from the mainland. The war quickly grew more serious when the cunning Hammurabi formed an alliance of nations against the Egyptians. First were the Russians, Egypt's old enemy, who sought to gain control of Ptenetou. Second were the Germans, who were about to complete the Manhattan Project and gain nuclear weapons. Third and most damaging were the Greeks, long Egypt's staunchest ally, but weak militarily. A number of fleets were sent against Ptenetou, but were repulsed by the Egyptian air force, still on high alert from the Oil War of the 1870s. The war looked like a stalemate, which was fine with Hapshetsut. But the evil Hammurabi had one more trick up his sleeve - he enlisted the aid of Tokugawa of Japan, Egypt's closest neighbor and one of the world's two superpowers. This development sent Egypt into alarm. Tokugawa's military was gigantic - almost 500 units worth of troops, most of them modernized. In addition, Egypt's spice colony of Hamadan was on the same continent as Japan, and was connected by a number of rail links. The Egyptian High Command issued frantic orders, ordering the rapid production of as many divisions of mechanized infantry as Egypt's industrial base could possibly support. The Air Force Transport Command was overloaded, flying dozens of units into Hamadan to bolster the defenders. In the end, there were 23 mechanized infantry divisions and 15 armored divisions in and around Hamadan. It was the greatest concentration of Egyptian firepower since the Ever Victorious Armies of the Persian Wars. The defenders of Hamadan readied themselves and waited. The Japanese came on like a flood, throwing themselves against the well-entrenched Egyptians. Motorized infantry, cavalry, the most modern mechanized infantry, all threw themselves into the guns of the defenders and perished. The carnage was so great that subsequent waves bogged down, unable to move. But they kept coming, and coming, and soon the Egyptians began running out of men and ammunition, but they kept fighting, and dying. Finally, it was down to hand to hand fighting in the streets of Hamadan, and then, finally, there were no Egyptians left alive in the city. Japan had won, but it was a costly victory. For the 38 Egyptian divisions destroyed, Tokugawa lost 70 divisions of motorized infantry, 20 cavalry divisions, and 4 mechanized infantry divisions - almost a fifth of his total army. [Ed Note - That's the most intense battle I've ever had in Civ, I think. It took a half hour to watch happen, and I was glued to the screen the whole time, cheering on my mech infantry as they went from veteran to elite, and then losing a few hp, and then finally going down to 1 more hp, and even then managing to take out one last motorized infantry. Wow. I even got a leader during the battle, but of course I couldn't get him out in time... :|] |
| Egypt In Crisis 1898-1908 |
| At the Battle of Hamadan, Egypt was dealt an almost crippling blow -
the loss of almost a third of the Ever Victorious Army. However,
24 divisions of armor had, just before the battle, landed in Greece,
where they proceeded to destroy Alexander's outdated infantry divisions,
capturing both Athens and the port at Pella just in time for shipments
of the latest modern armor to arrive. The Egyptian forces quickly
overwhelmed Greek defenses, capturing city after city. [In other words,
I got Synthetic Fibers and upgraded all my tanks in a turn. Alex
got steamrolled after that. ;)] On the seas, the Egyptian Navy ruled, defending the shores from both the Japanese and Greek navies. A shock came when the Greek dreadnaughts Alexander and Zeus appeared off Quatchai, sinking two Egyptian destroyers, but the threat was almost trivial. Both ships sailed back to port, and were scuttled during the last days of the Seige of Corinth. In the air, things were grave. Japanese zeppelin raids hit the undefended Egyptian heartland on a daily basis, destroying roads and depriving Egyptian industry of critical supplies of rubber and uranium. Fighter wings were quickly raised, and the daily sound of bombs changed to the daily sound of machine gun fire as Egyptian fighters brought down Japanese zeppelins. [This was my second air war. The first was in the 1870s Oil War when Russian zeppelins tried the same trick and paid for it. Seeing compy use air power really rules.] The Egyptian citizens, unfortunately, were getting extremely tired of war by 1905, and peace protests occured on a daily basis in front of the Palace of the Immortals. Soldiers returning from the front were spit on and reviled. Moving quickly, President Hapshetsut invoked the Military Emergency Act, called up the National Guard, and declared the National Socialist Republic of Egypt. The rioting quickly stopped. Nevertheless, Hapshetsut saw the need for a speedy resolution to the war, and she contacted the Japanese, the Germans, and the Babylonians, and made peace. The Greeks would continue to pay for their breach of trust, and Stalin unfortunately had the Egyptian ambassador shot. India, perhaps sensing an opportunity, allied with Tokugawa and declared war on Babylon. [And at this point, the game crashed. <shrug> We'll see how it goes later. Getting fun though. I've got nukes, they've all got the ability to produce them, there's little undeclared espionage wars going on, and the global situation is really, really ugly. I pity the poor fool who tried to build the UN. Alpha Centauri, here I come, just as soon as I pick up Jet Propulsion for some F-16s and B-1Bs. That'll show those zeppelins. ;) And Greece is going waaaaaaaaay down. I think I'll wipe em off the map, just to be mean. :P] |
| The Silver Age |
| The National Socialist Republic of Egypt proved to be short lived.
Citing the extreme disfavor of the gods, Hapshetsut quickly
restored democracy to Egypt with the end of the Hamadan War. [or I found
that I had a really strange crash bug involving the fascism government,
so I changed it back and hoped really hard] With the end of the war, Egypt was able to sit back and rebuild. The former Greek cities were rehabilitated, aided, and the Egyptian army and air force were upgraded to the latest technology. The Silver Age of the Egyptians saw Egypt go from being merely one amongst equals to the most technologically advanced nation the world had ever seen. Egyptian jet fighters and bombers ruled the skies, and the most modern Ramses IV MBTs protected Egypt from her enemies. Egyptians were the first to enter space with the completion of the Horus Program in Lisht. While work began on a mighty spaceship to take Egyptian colonists to Alpha Centauri, Egypt entered an undeclared espionage war with Germany. German spies proved to be superior, and soon Bismark felt ready for overt action. Egyptian commanders in the former Greek territories awoke one morning to find that massive numbers of German mechanized infantry were unloading on both the Greek heartland and the island of Rhodes. Both Rhodes and it's suburb of Halicanarsis fell almost immediately to the overwhelming forces arrayed against them [should have built an airport. Oops.] But on the heartland, the Battle of Corinth was the second-largest operation in the history of the Ever Victorious Army, and they triumphed. The Greek Mobile Reserve rushed to Corinth to hold off the assault, while the First and Second Tank Armies were rushed to Athens for transport to the front. The First Bomber Wing also flew to Athens, and as the B1 jet bombers flew dozens of support missions against the Germans, Egyptian armored forces blew the German infantry apart. The few survivors were quickly surrounded and captured. Bismark, sensing his ultimate demise, and far more worried with the continuing hostilities between Babylon, India, Japan, and himself, sued for peace, just in time to join the rest of the world in watching the Egyptian colony ship Hapshetsut leave the Earth for Alpha Centauri. Or, in other words, the end. I didn't actually win scorewise, since both Japan and India had titanic amounts of land and ungodly militaries. I was third in land area, first in population, but my military only broke 100 units a few times. The only time when I really NEEDED that many units was the Battle of Hamadan, but I don't think there was ever a way I was going to hold off Tokugawa's entire army. 600 guys? No way. I know I've glossed over the end a bit, but essentially, nothing happened. India beat the hell out of Babylon pretty severely, and I imagine that, given either my participation (which almost happened) or a few more turns, Hammurabi would have gone down. Montezuma, who declared war randomly on me late in the game, would have gone down, except nobody could be bothered to go do in his last city up on a north pole island. I also skipped over my very intense worry that somebody was going to bring out nuclear weapons and blow me away, but fortunately they were all too busy fighting conventional wars with each other. So my 5 or 6 ICBMs and 5 odd tac nukes never got used, although I was really worried about it. All in all, the best game I've had in quite a while, and I think it validates everything I've been doing with my personal game mod. I started out well, got boxed in, fought a disadvantageous war with Japan and Persia, but beat both off in the Middle Ages, then proceeded to deftly gain the lead in tech and population while wiping out Persia and fighting the war mentioned below. A number of firsts happened for me, which was good. First air war. First massive sneak invasion by the comp (Germany landed around 30 mech inf on me, which was highly impressive), and of course, Hamadan. Very good times. |